


Birth of the Unforgiven.

by janboy



Category: League of Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 23:29:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12851841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janboy/pseuds/janboy
Summary: The story of how Yasuo came to be. The story of how his homeland came to view their prodigal swordsman as a murderer and traitor. The story begins the same way that it will inevitably end-- with bloodshed.





	Birth of the Unforgiven.

Clack. Clack.

A quiet mumble.

Clack. Clack.

The only noise in the courtyard came from Naoshi’s board game. Irensei.

Played with black stones and white stones, a strategy game where the winner is declared after succesfully making an unbroken line of seven stones, either vertically, diagonally, or horizontally.

Naoshi sat on his knees in the center of the courtyard. After every move he made on the board, he rotated it to make the next move for the opposing side.

“Yasuo. Come and join me. It’s a riveting game so far.”

Yasuo sat a some feet away from Naoshi. His back was towards the elder, and he sat with his legs drawn up and his sheathed sword across his lap. Yasuo looked forward. He was facing the exit arch of the courtyard, ahead of him was the rolling plains that surronded the School of Kaze. The swordschool was built atop a hill, the highest point for the breezes to roll over and across. Even now, Yasuo could feel the wind on his skin, but every minute he swore he could smell smoke and blood traveling along it. He didn’t turn at Naoshi’s request, it wasn’t the first attempt at starting conversation the elder had tried and it wouldn’t be the last. Yasuo simply sat, silent. Silent as the school itself.

Where there would be an aura of conversation, banter and instruction along with swords of wood and steel clashing in spars, there was just Naoshi’s Irensei board. All that was left was left to them was that empty courtyard and those stones. Some hours before the students of the school had lined up in this very courtyard, armed and faces set. Yone had been there too, in that line. Infront of them the masters stood and they recited the code of the Samurai, the code that was instilled within each of them since they were young.

Yasuo stood with the elders to the side, his jaw clenched tightly and silent breaths coming and going through his nose.

After some words of instruction, a majority of the students and masters left out this very exit and began their journey to the nearby town Ji-Jao, where scouts of the Ionian guard expected Noxians to be arriving at shortly.  
Yasuo only exchanged one glance with Yone amongst the marching samurai before his brother left.

The more aged elders in the School of Kaze had already departed for the Placidium weeks ago. They would be more userful there, working as sword-instructors in this time of war or strategists. But they couldn’t completely abandon the School, it would serve as a line of defense as well if the town Ji-Jao was taken. So here Yasuo sat with Naoshi. Within the body of the school itself, other elders napped or tended to their own duties.

“It would benefit you to keep your mind sharp during trying times like this, Yasuo. Come play this move.”

Yasuo’s fingers curled and uncurled. His lips drew thin and his brows furrowed together. How he raged on the inside. How the wind which he’d come to master blew and blew within him with enough force to summon howling gales of his own. Naoshi’s words almost pushed him over the edge, his calm, uncaring demeanor irritated Yasuo. Yasuo shut his eyes tightly. Instead of letting the wind within him escape, he inhaled deeply through his nostrils.

Then, he smelled it.

Smoke.

Yasuo’s eyes snapped open and he leapt to his feet. Without a word he dropped his sword to the ground and sprinted towards the corner of the courtyard. There, a wooden tower stood that served as a lookout post with a number of wooden beams branching off of it to train balance and footwork.

“–Yasuo!”

He ignored Naoshi’s cry and ran straight towards the ladder propped against the tower at full speed. As the distance grew shorter, Yasuo jumped forward and climbed the first few rungs without need for a handhold. Then, he climbed upward until he reached the tower’s nest. From that height, he could oversee all of the school. Below him, the courtyard with a startled Naoshi looking up, and to all sides of Yasuo was rolling hills. Dipping and rising, flowing into the distance. Up here, the wind came to him more clearly. There were no walls in the way and no constructions of man. From this height, it was the wind’s domain.

The smell of smoke filled his nostrils again, and Yasuo walked towards the far end of the nest and leaned against the wooden railing. He squinted into the distance, and sure enough, he could just make out the buildings from the town Ji-Jao. His eyes slowly scanned to the left of the city, and what he saw only incited the urge to ACT in his core. A dark mass, a blob marching towards the town. The Noxians.

His fingers itched uncontrollably. He had half a mind to leap from the tower itself and run to fight. Yone was there. His friends and his masters were THERE. Yasuo turned his head and looked down towards Naoshi, then towards his sword which he’d left in the courtyard. He began walking towards the ladder before something made him freeze again. The smoke in the air. But, it wasn’t coming from the direction of Ji-Jao. It was coming from the east. Yasuo ran towards the opposite railing and looked in the distance. All he saw was rolling hills until his eyes rested on the Soa river. There, a small cluster of black-iron ships chugged along the river, blowing plumes of smoke into the air.

Down the Soa river there was a small port run by a handful of fishing families. From that port there was a back-road that eventually led right into Ji-Jao. These Noxians would flank the Ionians and kill them all.  
Yasuo ran towards the ladder and slid himself down the side-rungs to the courtyard. He continued to ignore Naoshi as he ran towards his original sitting position and picked up his sword. It was only when Naoshi rose to his feet did Yasuo stop and look towards him.

“There’s another Noxian unit coming down the Soa river.”

Naoshi’s face was incredulous, instantly he shook his head. “Yasuo the scouts said they would hit Ji-Jao, they don’t even know about the Soa–”

“I SAW them with my own eyes! I SAW them Naoshi!”

Yasuo hadn’t intended to shout. But his hands subconciously tightened about the sheath and handle of his blade as he spoke, and his hands shook. He was an animal restrained, a lion on a leash. Naoshi was even more startled with the sudden change of voice, but Yasuo’s conviction wiped almost any doubt from his mind.

“Yasuo… If they are on the Soa… Our brothers and sisters at Ji-Jao will defeat them as well,” Naoshi took a step forward slowly, one of his hands extended and gently rested on Yasuo’s shoulder, “We must hold our post here. We are duty bound to obey our orders, it’s who we are, Yasuo.”

Yasuo closed his eyes again. Naoshi’s words were low, calm. Naoshi was always a level-headed elder, it was to him that students went to learn meditation and control, and it was to him that Yasuo was sent to after learning he could control the wind like the legends of Korito. It was their code, he was right, to follow their master’s orders and obey. But as his eyes remained shut, all Yasuo could see in his mind was Yone, and those Noxian ships traversing down the Soa.

“…Sit with me Yasuo, it’s your move.”

“TO HELL WITH YOUR GAME!”

Yasuo pushed Naoshi’s arm off of his shoulder. His eyes opened and anger flared upon his face. The tight grip he had upon his sword’s handle never loosened.

“How can you sit here, playing with STONES while our people fight? While they DIE defending our home? And now they will be surrounded by the invaders and you want to sit and play IRENSEI?!”

Naoshi’s face went from startled to angry. Gone was his calm presence and instead, ominous anger dripped from each word he spoke.

“Yasuo I am your elder, I was one of those who brought you from Haka to Kaze. You will not speak to me in this way. You will no disrespect me like this. You were ORDERED to stay by my side HERE. Now SIT.”

To any other man, Naoshi’s words would’ve broken them. He was kind, but in this moment now he resembled the rumbling thunder of a storm. Even with his rank, his orders, and his tone, Yasuo stood defiantly before him and did not budge.

“Make me.”

Yasuo accentuated his words by just barely unsheathing his sword. Just enough so that a sliver of its steel was exposed, and instantly wrapping about that steel, a low his of rushing wind blew about it. There he held his blade, Yasuo continued to glare towards Naoshi, unblinking. Naoshi’s own hand was on the handle of his sword at his hip, but when Naoshi saw the wind he was summoning, the elder simply closed his eyes and sighed.

Both of them knew that Yasuo was the stronger one.

And so Yasuo turned his back to Naoshi, and he ran out the courtyard exit.

Behind him, he could hear Naoshi calling.

“Yasuo come back! Yasuo! Yasuo!”

(And those cries would haunt Yasuo long after this day.)  
________________________________________  
He ran faster than he had ever run in his life. The wind came to him and guided him, empowered him. The winds of Ionia knew that the Noxians were invaders and destroyers, and so Yasuo felt the breeze pushing every step he took forward. Faster, faster, faster. He was a flurry of wind, surrounded in a perpetual breeze and clearing hill after hill in mere blinks. He was ALIVE. The connection he felt with the wind in that moment was stronger than ever before, it was a conduit that didn’t need Yasuo to hold his sword or draw it, the wind was within him and he its guide. He felt stronger than ever, the intent to fight and defend his homeland, that PURPOSE only strengthened the flow and breeze surrounding him and flowing over his body.

Yasuo looked upwards. The sun shined with no clouds to contest its claim to the sky, it was a beautiful day.

Then Yasuo’s gaze slowly lowered and he set his eyes on the menacing boats that docked at the Soa port. His pace slowed to a slow jog as he assessed the area. Thankfully, the entire province of the School of Kaze had been evacuated before, there were no civilians within this small fishing dock or even with Ji-Jao. Yasuo had heard tales about the first waves of Noxian invaders, where the Ionians were caught off-guard. The tales of slaughter carried like the wind throughout the nation.

Yasuo kept a hand at the top of his sheathe and the other wrapped about the handle as he approached. Three of those boats had docked at the port. Yasuo approached the first shack and rested his back against it. Then, he peeked around the corner and watched as the Noxians began to step off of their boat and onto the wooden docks.

Their armor was dark. Black, red, and grey. Each boat had a commanding officer adorned in a tabard with what seemed to be the Noxian insignia upon it. The commanding officers stepped onto the dock and began barking orders. In a mechanical fashion, soldiers streamed out from the belly of the boat and took up positions just off the dock’s steps. Their weapons were crude compared to the blades of Kaze. Straight swords, dull shines on some, scrapes and dents on others. Some carried hammers and others shouldered crossbows. Yasuo brought his head back from peeking and rested the back of his head against the wall. He looked up towards the sky again. Small, wispy clouds began to float across the blue sky.

Peaceful.

Yasuo heard the Noxians shouting orders again, and this time he unsheathed his blade and walked around the corner.

It took a moment for them to notice Yasuo’s slow approach. Yasuo kept his sword low, the blade’s point dragged along the ground as he walked. There were over twenty men in the center of the huddling of shacks, each of them armed. Once one of the commanding officers realized his presence, he instantly waved his arm and ordered the crossbowmen to fire at him.

They didn’t hesitate, not for a moment, as their weapons rose and fired.

Five bolts fired, each going off in split-second succession after the other. Yasuo waited only for a blink before finally springing into action.

He sliced his sword across the ground infront of him. From the scar in the earth he created, powerful gusts of wind blew upwards into an impassable wall. Those bolts flew directly into the wind and then clattered harmlessly to the ground. From behind that cover, and while hearing the sounds of crossbows being reloaded with shouts of surprise, Yasuo pressed his sword into the ground again then leapt upwards. A propulsion of wind lifted Yasuo nearly ten-feet in the air, and he landed gracefully atop the shack he’d been hiding behind.

Yasuo ran horizontally. He saw from his peripherals as the bowmen adjusted their aim. So he ran to the edge of the shack, and with bolts whistling past him, he leapt from one shack to the other.

They were reloading again, and it was that moment that Yasuo took a hard left and ran towards the center of the village. He watched as the Noxians beneath him readied their weapons. Their weapons were raised, their faces were contorted into snarls or grimaces, they were the enemy. They had come to Ionia, self-indulgent in their greed to conquer. They only brought with them destruction and death.

And now Yasuo would be their undoing.

The lip of the roof was approaching. Yasuo’s sword was raised, point towards the heavens and both hands wrapped about the handle. The wind had returned, he could feel it in his legs and arms, he could feel it in his heart. The blade of his sword was wrapped in ever increasing currents of wind, so powerful that the currents extended past the blade’s tip and seemed to be a pillar of its own.

In their eyes now, Yasuo could see fear.

He leapt off of the roof and swung his sword downwards, and with it the wind came crashing down.

Those Noxians closest to him were crushed. Yasuo had leapt towards the nearest one, and between his head his sword buried and split into two. With his strike the wind fanned out to either side of him, blowing away the rest who were gathered and tossing them aside. Bodies were thrown some distance, Noxians crashed into walls and wind splintered in the air.

Yasuo slowly rose from his kneeling position. Before him, the guts and entrails of the first Noxian spilled out onto the grass at his feet. It was a clean cut, one that not even the sharpest blade could make, without the shearing force of the wind behind it. In the village center, a low fog now remained permanent. Yasuo stepped over the corpse with nonchalance.

Slowly, the others began to rise from their dazed state.

One of the Noxians pushed himself to his feet as Yasuo approached. He experiementally rolled his wrist, sword swirling in a circle in the air. A moment later, he swung powerfully in a horizontal arc towards Yasuo. Yasuo met the blow with a vicious swing of his own. Steel met steel, and the Noxian’s sword snapped in two at the point of impact. The Noxian’s arm recoiled in pain at the jarring collission, but Yasuo didn’t falter. He plunged his blade deep into the man’s chest, then kicked him off and darted to the next who began to rise.

The flow was beginning to overtake him. The flow of battle, the Sweeping Blade. Fabled technique of Korito, to channel the wind so that it was like a river current, constantly flowing, from one to the other.

Yasuo seemed to glide across the ground as more and more Noxians rose to meet him. His feet barely touched the grass, in large bounds he crossed the ground and his knees were always bent, always ready, his sword constantly drawn back and slicing forward. He dipped beneath swings and his blade seemlessly cut through armor and flesh. His speed left Noxians dazed and in shock as their swings met nothing but air and their guts spilled forth from sliced bellies.

His blade sung in the air with each thrust and cut. Blood filled the inscriptions along its steel. This was what Yasuo had trained for. This was what he was made to do. Defend his HOME.

Yasuo parried another blow and fluidly dipped beneath a surprise strike from behind. Crouched and balanced on one foot, on the balls of his feet, his momentum carried him into a small spin and his sword sliced across both Noxian’s thighs, crippling them and causing them to crash to the ground. Yasuo twirled his sword in the palm of his hand and he aimed the point down.

Twice, it rose and fell, and two more corpses joined the rest.

Yasuo’s shoulders were heaving from exertion now. The wind could only do so much to push away exhaustion. He looked behind him, and body after body met his gaze. Limbs detached from torsos, blood in puddles at every step. Yasuo yanked his sword free and continued walking towards the docks.

It was there that the remaining commanding officers stood.

Only those three remained out of the twenty soldiers they’d brought.

The center officer spoke a hushed word to one of the others while drawing his sword. The officer he spoke with nodded his head and sprinted inside the ship. Yasuo approached the pair. He didn’t care, they all would fall by his blade.

The two officers approached together. Both of them held their swords at the ready and watched Yasuo with narrowed eyes. Yasuo approached steadily, unfazed by the number advantage. Their faces were aged, older than the men he’d slain before, but not old enough to endure degradation. They were hardened warriors. Yasuo memorized their faces, a crooked nose with strangely piercing blue eyes, the other with gaunt cheekbones and seemingly hollow eyes, he’d endured loss past what Yasuo could see within them.

In unison, they striked.

One of them swung high, the other swung for his torso. Yasuo stepped into the first swing, sword rising to block the strike, and he attempted to dodge the second by barging his shoulder into the first officer. But he couldn’t escape the sword fully. Yasuo felt it dig into his arm, slicing across the top of his left bicep and cutting across to his chest. There was a split-second of searing, firelike pain that he felt crackling through his body, then his sword rose and he delivered swings of his own. Yasuo kicked the first to the ground, and he turned his attention to the one who wounded him.

The officer thrusted forward with his sword this time. Yasuo spun to the side, blade in tow, and he sliced vertically at the extended Noxian’s arms.

From the elbow down, his arms dropped to the ground like tree stumps. The man let out a harrowing shriek, blood spewed into the air, bone and muscle, sinew and flesh serrated and exposed to the air. Yasuo clenched his jaw and swung his sword again, across the Noxian’s chest. Then again, and again, and again.

His strikes were too quick, shrouded by the breeze as the wind at his grasp grew stronger and stronger. The Noxian’s chest was almost entirely devoid of structure or skin, all that was left from Yasuo’s rage was a muddled, twisted mess of flesh and blood.

The wind was his now, it called to him and Yasuo willingly called back. He heard the other Noxian approaching, thunderous footsteps as he ran. Yasuo waited until the very last moment before turning and dragging the point of his blade along the ground into an upwards swing.

The wind left his blade and followed the trail he sent. Before him, the currents swirled in the air and manifested into something solid, something real, and something powerful. A twister. Rumbles like thunder filled his ears as the twister met the Noxian and threw him into the air with as much ease as a child tossing a toy.

And those currents didn’t stop with the twister. Yasuo jumped into the air and met the Noxian, sword above his head and body coursing with strength.

“SEREGEY–”

A vertical cleave. Then a horizontal one. The Noxian was helpless, suspended before him as his limbs and body was cleaved into pieces.

“–TON!”

A final vertical strike, one that sent them both crashing to the ground.

When the dust settled, Yasuo took a step back. His shoulders rose, then fell heavily. He was tired.

He blinked away the dust and blood from his vision, and all that was left of the officer was piles of chopped body parts. An entire torso, cleaved into two. A leg, an arm. Bloodied and with bones shattered or protruding. A skull, open like a sink basin.  
Yasuo closed his eyes. He’d done it. He’d stopped them.

But then he remembered the third officer.

His eyes opened just in time to see him burst from the bottom hatch of the ship he’d ran into. He watched as the officer began screaming at someone below deck. Yasuo could hear him saying ‘GO! GO!’.

And like that, the three ships began their slow churn back up the river. Yasuo watched them go. He was too tired to follow, not that he could have. Once those black plumes of smoke filled the air again, those boats moved with speed that he couldn’t match on foot. It didn’t matter, their flanking force was decimated, all because of him.

Yasuo rose his free-hand and rubbed the heel of his palm against his eye. Then he heard a rapid whistling approaching from the air.

Yasuo’s head snapped upwards and he saw a projectile flying through the air. Yasuo instinctively pressed his sword into the ground and drew a small circle around him. Air currents rushed upward, then he crouched down and sheltered within the dome.  
All he could see around him was white. Rushing wind, but outside the wind-dome he heard explosions. One after the other, explosion after explosion. Yasuo rose his hands to his head and covered his ears. It was deafening, and coming from all around him. Yasuo shut his eyes and his whole body shook through the earth as it continued. From outside the walls of wind he could feel heat, immense heat, emanating from around him.

It carried on like this for what seemed like hours, but in actuality was only a handful of minutes. Only when Yasuo felt the heat around him die down, did he tentatively raise his head and slowly drop the safety of the wind surrounding him.  
In the distance, far along the river Soa, he saw the remaining officer standing on the end of his ship. He was standing by a ballista, one that must’ve been slinging the projectiles at the village. Yasuo watched as the boat slowly left his vision and disappeared back upstream.

Then, Yasuo looked around him.

All he saw was ash. The first inhale he took sent him into a coughing fit.

There was nothing left after the shelling. No bodies, no buildings, no remnants of any sort of battle. Just ash and dirt.

Yasuo covered his mouth with his hand, still coughing violently, and he stumbled out of the village and began the trek back to the School of Kaze.

There was no wind to assist him on the way back. For some reason, the breeze was dead. Yasuo limped back across the hills and the sun was middway through its descent to reuinite with the horizon. When Yasuo saw the arch of the courtyard entryway come into view, his pace quickened.

“Naoshi I–” He continued to cough, and he climbed up the steps expecting to see Naoshi sitting beside the Irensei board with that stern expression on his face.  
What he actually saw was just red.

The board was shattered. Black and white stones littered the courtyard floor, covered in droplets and puddles of blood.

Naoshi’s torso was cleaved in two, diagonally. One of his legs was ten feet from the other, and his sword lay on the stone a number of feet in the opposite direction. Yasuo’s jaw was agape, his mind unable to comprehend what he was seeing.  
Slowly, with almost timid steps, Yasuo approached Naoshi’s corpse. He looked around. There was no sign of any invaders. The courtyard was peaceful, eeriely peaceful save for the elder’s corpse in the center.

'Someone must’ve slipped by I must’ve missed someone and he came…. Here…’

Yasuo closed his eyes. A single, silent tear slid down his cheek. This was his fault.

But he’d done the right thing. He saved Ji-Jao.

And with a heavy heart, Yasuo walked across the courtyard and gathered Naoshi’s sword. He placed it back into its sheathe, then he knelt beside his corpse.

There, he waited for the rest of Kaze to return.  
________________________________________  
The students and lower masters gathered just outside the courtyard gate. They didn’t enter the courtyard, none of them spoke. They simply stared at the kneeling Yasuo and the dead Naoshi. Yasuo didn’t raise his gaze towards them, he stared at the ground. He couldn’t meet their gaze. He knew Yone would be looking for his eyes, but he couldn’t meet his brother’s gaze.

He’d failed them, he’d failed him. He left his post and now Naoshi was dead.

A murmuring only came when the headmaster of Kaze finally pushed through the crowd.  
Headmaster Ishino climbed up the steps and stood before Yasuo. Yasuo’s gaze slowly rose to meet Ishino’s. The headmaster’s face was impassive. He too bore the marks of combat, scars and dried blood adorned his arms. But he stood stalwart, straight-backed.

After a long minute, he spoke.

“Yasuo Eiji,” he said.

“Yes, master Ishino.”

“You murdered Elder Naoshi.”

Yasuo was startled. He had to bite his tongue to keep from yelping from sheer shock.

“No, master, I-there was a Noxian–”

“The Noxians were at Ji-Jao, Yasuo. You murdered Elder Naoshi. You used the wind technique on him.”

“Master! I did not kill Nao–”

“You killed your elder, Yasuo Eiji. You’ve betrayed our code and your students, you’ve betrayed your masters and your brother, you’ve betrayed Ionia.”

Yasuo’s lips were parted and moved but no words came out. He could show them, he could plead and throw himself at Ishino’s feet, he could show them Soa and–

The Noxians burned Soa to the ground. There was no proof. And here he was. Covered in blood and scars, Naoshi as well, and his body was in the same state as the Noxian officer he’d killed. There was no proof to prove his own innocence.  
Yasuo’s breathing quivered. He finally broke Ishino’s gaze and looked past him. It only took a blink for him to find the wide-eyed, incredulous, and betrayed gaze of Yone staring back at him.

'Yone believes him too, they all do.’

“Yasuo Eiji, a crime of this level is punishable by execution.”

Yasuo remained silent. He didn’t blink, he didn’t breathe, but his mind ran and ran and ran.

“I will allow you to take your own life, so you may keep what little shreds of honor you have left.”

Ishino waited expectantly. As did the rest of those gathered behind him. It was tradition.

Yasuo looked towards them, then towards Ishino, then finally towards Yone.

He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t pay for a crime he didn’t commit.

Yasuo’s sword called to him. He couldn’t die like this.

He had to find the true killer.

Ishino saw Yasuo’s mind working, he could see it upon Yasuo’s face.

Another blink, as quick as the breeze, and both Yasuo and Ishino drew their swords. Ishino to decapitate, Yasuo to deflect.

And the rest is history.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for reading! This is my first post on here and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.


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